Field of the Invention
The present invention concerns wireless communications, and more specifically, to methods and apparatuses for monitoring downlink control channels in a wireless communication system supportive of multiple component carriers.
Related Art
3GPP (3rd Generation Partnership Project) TS (Technical Specification) Release 8-based LTE (long term evolution) is a key next-generation communication standard. Recently, standardization is underway for LTE-A (LTE-advanced) based on 3GPP TS release 10.
As set forth in 3GPP TS 36.211 V10.2.0 (June 2011) “Evolved Universal Terrestrial Radio Access (E-UTRA); Physical Channels and Modulation (Release 10),” physical channels in 3GPP LTE/LTE-A systems may be divided into downlink channels such as PDSCH (Physical Downlink Shared Channel) and PDCCH (Physical Downlink Control Channel) and uplink channels such as PUSCH (Physical Uplink Shared Channel) and PUCCH (Physical Uplink Control Channel).
Various technologies for increasing transmission capacity of mobile communication systems are under discussion in order to deal with increasing data traffic. For example, techniques such as MIMO (Multiple Input Multiple Output) using multiple antennas and carrier aggregation supporting multiple cells are being introduced.
The control channel designed in the above-mentioned 3GPP LTE/LTE-A standard carries various control information. Here, a need exists for a specific scheme to provide flexible scheduling while increasing the capacity of control channels to keep up with new technologies.